


please kiss me (it's for science)

by topangamatthews



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Romance, it's just anne and gil being dorks, making excuses to kiss each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 17:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15417978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topangamatthews/pseuds/topangamatthews
Summary: Anne Shirley does not want to kiss Gilbert Blythe. She really, really doesn’t. But how else is she supposed to write about a kiss for her romantical short story if she’s never had one before? And Avonlea is just filled with so little options…





	please kiss me (it's for science)

It’s not that Anne  _wanted_  to kiss Gilbert Blythe. Really. She could think of a million different things she wanted to do before ever doing that: getting stung by a killer bee, becoming stranded on a deserted island after a shipwreck, finding the sole of her shoe stuck to the tracks of an incoming train. 

But she _had_  to kiss him. For science. For her art.

After talking to Josephine about her latest short story, a haunting tale about ghosts looking for fellow lonely souls to capture for company, it had been suggested she worked on a genre other than the usual gothic and horror stories she did. Just to change it up bit, exercise different writing techniques. And Anne, ever excited to take up the advice of one of her role models, set out to get started on her “assignment.”

She went to the newly built story club house, smiling to herself only a bit shamefully that it was empty, and sat on the ground with paper on her lap and a quill in her hand. The beginning of the story was simple, a tragic heroine serving as a lowly maid to a prince she had known since they were both children. The prince engaged to someone else but in love with her and the maid having to struggle with her feelings and the risk their relationship would entail. It was all very devastatingly beautiful if Anne said so herself, but then Anne found herself at the climax. The prince took the maid into his arms, she felt her defenses start to fall and then…And then Anne didn’t know how to continue.

She knew what should happen. They should share the most passionate kiss ever written in history, all the tension she’d written had been leading up to that after all. But she just didn’t know  _how_  to write it.

At fifteen years old, Anne still had never been kissed before. Not that it was a fact she particularly liked to let her mind linger on, or one that had ever really bothered her, but now the fact, the  _obstacle_ , was affecting her writing.

She’d read about kisses, sure. But if she based her writing on only that, it would be taking the words of others. And for all Anne knew, all those other people had been lying to her and kisses weren’t as amazing and life changing as they had made it out to be.

And she knew she couldn’t ask for the opinions of the people she trusted the most. Last year when she had asked Marilla and Matthew about kissing, they’d avoided her questions. As for Diana, she had asked her what it had been like to kiss Moody but she had said it’d been over in less than a second and she hadn’t really gotten to take in what she was feeling.

So that left her with the only option she had: she had to kiss somebody herself.

And she knew it had to be Gilbert.

Again, not because she  _wanted_  to but because it was her only choice. Gilbert was the only logical option for her. The rest of the boys at school found her repulsive (a feeling that was mutual). And there was no way she would kiss Jerry. She could already imagine the smirk on his face if she asked him. She thought briefly about asking Cole but knew that she probably wouldn’t even feel a spark considering the nature of their relationship.

Gilbert was not a choice of the heart. It wasn’t even a choice. It was a last resort. 

A feeling started in the pit of her stomach, almost like a flurry of snowflakes, as she thought about kissing him. It was probably just a side affect of her disgust at the idea that she of all people had been trapped in such an uncomfortable situation. But there was really nothing else she could do.

That night she had gone to bed thinking about how she could bring up her predicament to Gilbert the next day at school. Obviously she had to get him alone somehow, not a difficult task considering he’d gotten into the habit of walking her home lately. No, the difficult part was how she would word her predicament to him. She had to make it very clear that what she was asking him to do was not a matter of romance, but simply a friend asking another friend for a favor in sake of their art.

Anne, after much trial and error, came up with a speech and practiced it over and over again. 

She practiced it in her sleep. She practiced it in front of the mirror as she got ready for school, putting half of her ginger hair up with a white ribbon. She practiced it in between bites of bread at breakfast. She practiced it as she made sure she had the lip balm Diana had gifted to her on her birthday in her dress pocket and walked out of the door to go to school. 

She practiced it again and again and again.

_Gilbert, I need to ask you for a favor and I ask that you please be the good friend I know you are and not laugh at me. I am writing a romance story at the suggestion of Miss Josephine Barry and the two characters I am writing about are at the peak of their romantic endeavor. They have to share a kiss, you see, but I’m stuck because I’ve never been kissed and I don’t know how to accurately describe one. What I’m asking you is, if you could be mature about it, if you could kiss me so I can continue writing my story?_

But the second she saw him, it all went out of her mind. 

He was at the front of the classroom talking to Miss Stacy and looking unfairly handsome as he laughed and talked with her over a book he held in his hand. Anne didn’t even know how she had made it to her desk without tripping, all of her attention focused on him. Focused on his lips and thought about how they would possibly be on her own in a few hours. 

She spent the rest of the day like that, focused on him. It wasn’t fair to Miss Stacy during class or her friends during lunch to only pretend to be paying attention while her mind was on another planet entirely. It was just that she couldn’t help it.

Anne was an imbalanced mixture of nervous and excitement, and it only seemed to grow the closer it got to school letting out. Her chin stayed still on the palm of her hand, her elbow propping it up as it stayed on her desk. She found herself sneaking glances to her right about every second, looking at Gilbert as he wrote on his slate, completely oblivious to her.

It’s not that she hadn’t noticed him before, but now she was hyperaware of all his features. The sharp angle of his jaw. The slight vein popping out on his left hand. The way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he wrote something down. The long eyelashes that bent upwards in their own right. His curls. 

Anne, not that she would ever admit it, had often found his curls the object of her daydreams when she allowed her mind to wander without self judgment. She imagined what it would feel like to twirl one of his perfect brown tendrils around her finger. Or even better yet, have all of her fingers, her whole hands splayed out in his mess of curls.

She was just thinking about this, about how it would feel to reach up and run her hand through his hair, to have the softness of it in between her fingers and have it anchor her down, when Diana broke the daydream by poking her side.

“Anne, you’re bleeding,” she whispered, pointing up at her lips.

Anne blinked, reaching up to swipe her thumb across her bottom lip where she had just been biting it in concentration and saw the slight red show up on her finger.

“Shoot,” Anne said, wiping at it again until no more red showed up.

“Are you okay,” Diana asked her, obviously concerned.

“I’m perfectly fine, Diana,” she said, reaching into her pocket. She took out the small tin of lip balm and dipped her pinky in it before swiping it across her lips. “It’s just that I can’t seem to stop thinking at all today and it seems I was doing it a little too forcefully.”

Diana gave her a polite but curious smile and Anne thanked her graciously in her mind that she didn’t push the subject any further. She would die of embarrassment if her greatest bosom friend discovered it had been a boy of all things that was the cause of her not being able to focus. (At least not focus on the things she  _should_ be focusing on.)

When class ended, she noticed Gilbert give her a small smile as he slowly stood up and began to collect his things. Anne knew by then it was his way of telling her that he wanted to walk her home. He’d been doing it for a couple months, the same little mannerism, and every time he waited for her by the door and asked if he could walk her home. Diana had said that soon he would probably be asking permission to court her and Anne had swiftly clenched her jaw and refrained from yelling at her for the ridiculous suggestion. 

She got up from her desk and went to the grab her bag and coat, putting it on and feeling the same fluttery feeling she had felt yesterday at the thought of kissing Gilbert. As always, Gilbert was waiting for her at the bottom of the steps, hands in his pockets and one leg crossed in front of the other. He smiled as Anne stepped out of the school room and she tried not to blush at the sight of it. Her red hair was bad enough, she did  _not_  need a red face as well.

“Mind if I walk you home today,” Gilbert asked her, uncrossing his legs, his smile still wide.

“Not a bit,” she smiled back, stepping down to meet him. 

He reached out in attempt to grab her books, usually carrying them for her so she could more easily pick flowers as they walked, but she only held them closer to her chest. For some reason the books seemed to be the only thing anchoring her down.

“I want to carry them today,” she said nervously, giving him a small smile. She could tell he was a bit confused but he simply nodded and extended his arm out, telling her to lead the way.

They walked down the usual path, open field before they got to the trees, walking in silence the entire time. Anne didn’t know what to say, how to bring  _it_ up, and was afraid that if she opened her mouth nonsense would tumble out. Luckily, Gilbert was the one to break the silence.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” he said teasingly. She looked up and saw that even with his lopsided smile, there was nothing but concern in his eyes. He bumped his shoulder with hers. “What’s eating you?”

Anne stopped in her steps, turning to look at him fully, and he quickly stopped too.

“Gilbert, I-,” she started, finding herself unable to continue when he was staring at her and looking more handsome than she’d ever seen him before. Windswept hair and wide honey eyes entirely focused on her and perfectly pink lips. And she blurted it out before she could stop herself, speech forgotten. “Kiss me.”

Her eyes went wide as she realized what she’d said, Gilbert’s eyes still wide but turning brighter with every second that passed.

“What,” he asked, voice filled with mirth and he stepped closer to her. 

She wanted to die, just absolutely  _perish_  on the spot. She might have been able to fight off a blush before but she felt it consume her entire being with a heat from a hundred suns. Nothing gave her more joy than the fact she couldn’t look at herself because she was completely certain she looked like an idiot.

“You don’t  _have_  to,” she blurted out again, wincing at the abrasiveness of her voice. “I just mean  _I_  don’t even want you to. I just…you’d be doing me a favor, you know? As a  _friend_ …I consider you a friend! And this favor would help my writing because I need to write a kiss but I don’t know what that feels like because I’ve never been kissed before and it just seemed like a good option to kiss you so that I can finally have that experience-.”

And whatever else was going to fall out of her mouth never did. Because instead, Gilbert let his books drop to the floor and he closed what little space had been left between them. He cupped her face in his hands, leaned down, and planted his lips on hers. 

She’d been frozen for only a moment, eyes wide, before she felt herself giving. She let her own books fall, closed her eyes, and her hands came up to hold on to his elbows so she could keep him in place and kiss him back.

She had been scared that she had no idea what she was going to do when she finally kissed someone, kissed Gilbert, but her instincts seemed to take over the worry. Instead, she focused on how his lips felt on hers, soft and tasting like something sweet that she couldn’t recognize. She focused on how it felt to have his warm hands, rough from years of work, on her cheeks. She focused on how it felt to share the same, single breath with a human being, to have their lips meet over and over again in something so tender, so reminiscent of a dance. 

Anne knew then why people dedicated so many poems and songs to kissing. It felt like so much at once. Like roses were growing from and around her lungs. Like a swarm of the most beautiful monarch butterflies had found them and made a home in her stomach. Like fireflies had begun to circle around her heart and made it glow the most magnificent yellow.

She had said before that she didn’t know why the word ‘kiss’ was so small for something that was supposed to be so big. And even though she knew now that it was, she also knew why it was such a small word. A kiss was just something that was. It was a simple fact, a law of science. Something that was just supposed to be. 

In that moment she knew she was supposed to be kissing Gilbert. It really was that simple.

He was the first one to pull back. Through half-lidded eyes she saw him slowly start to open his as well, a dazed look on his face complete with a breathless smile and pink tinted cheeks that made him look boyish and irresistible. She wondered how she looked to him.

He stood up straight, one hand still on her face and it went to tuck a piece of her behind her ear. She shuddered.

“So,” he began, face and voice dripping with amusement. “At least now we figured out a way to get you to stop talking.”

What she wanted to say was, “Jokes on you because if that is how you intend to shut me up every time, I will only continue to talk more.”

What she did say in reality was, “Gilbert Blythe, you are the most insufferable human being I have ever met.”

Anne started to see red again, leaning down to pick up her books and fully intending on marching away from him but he grabbed her by the shoulder and stopped her.

“Anne, c’mon. I was only joking,” Gilbert whined, though it was obvious he was still laughing a bit. “I just thought it was a little out of the blue that you asked me to kiss you was all.”

“Well you seemed to go along with it without needing much convincing,” she retorted, crossing her arms in front of her and looking at him with a raised eyebrow. That time it was Gilbert’s turn to blush.

“Yeah, well like you said,” he coughed. “It was a favor. For my friend. For your art.”

“Right,” she nodded primly.

They both avoided looking at each other until Gilbert spoke up again.

“So did it help then,” he asked, reaching his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Do you know how you’re going to write it now?”

“I think so,” she said. And then an idea popped into her head, shyly going out into the world and entering his. “But there are different kinds of kisses and I just feel like I should be well versed in all of them for the future of all my writing.”

She hoped she looked serious, hoped that it wasn’t obvious that it felt like her heart was ready to explode out of her chest at any given moment. But thankfully, for some reason, he looked just as serious. He gulped and nodded, still staring at her.

“Yeah,” he squeaked. “I totally agree. I can help you then, you know? Just so you can have all the information you need.”

“Good,” Anne smiled casually. She felt like she could fly but knew Marilla would kill her if she even tried. “We can finish this tomorrow.”

“It’s a plan,” Gilbert smiled back. He reached down to grab his books and fumbled trying to get back up. Anne realized she had never seen him fumble before, had never seen him as anything less than put together. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

She nodded once more and turned around to continue walking home, practically jumping all the way there. She quickly said her hellos to Marilla and Matthew before racing upstairs to her bedroom, letting herself fall into her bed with the widest smile on her face as she realized she’d been kissed.

She, Anne Shirley Cuthbert, was a woman who had been kissed! She had silently been resigned to the fact that she would probably die as a woman who hadn’t been kissed but now she didn’t have to. She’d been kissed and it had been the most magical, romantical moment of her life thus far. (Not that she would ever tell Gilbert that.)

(She also would never tell him, or anyone else for that matter, that when she fell asleep that night she had dreamt about kissing him again in a field of flowers while the sun bathed them in a light that was almost blinding.)

The next day Anne was more excited than usual to go to school, an attitude that Marilla noticed and asked her about it. Anne had just quickly told her she was excited for Miss Stacy’s lessons that day. Whether Marilla had believed her or not, she didn’t know but she also couldn’t find herself to care. Not when another day of kissing Gilbert Blythe was awaiting her.

When she had gotten to school, she saw him talking to the boys on their side of the room. She saw how he stopped talking to look at her, how his smiled immediately turned softer and shyer. It made her smile softer, too but on the inside her heart was bursting.

Diana had mentioned that she looked much more vibrant that day and Anne had taken the compliment in her stride.

“I  _feel_  much more vibrant, Diana,” Anne had said, stealing only one more glance towards Gilbert before deciding not to pay attention to him the rest of the day. He would be waiting for her at the end of it anyways. 

The afternoon sun was bright and when Anne saw Gilbert standing after school as he waited for her, she couldn’t help but blush as she remembered her dream from that night.

“Hello, Gilbert,” she greeted him.

“Hello, Anne,” he said back. He reached towards her books and that time, Anne let him grab them.

They walked their usual path, but Anne took them on a slight detour leading them to the story club house. She peeked inside, making sure no one was inside, and held the curtain open for him to crawl inside before her.

“What is this,” Gilbert asked, looking around at the books and pillows and small figurines that Anne, Diana, and Ruby had brought with them when they’d rebuilt the house.

“It’s where we have our story club,” Anne explained, taking a seat and grabbing sheets of paper and her quill and ink from where they were stored in her box. “We write stories and then critique each other to further improve ourselves. It’s where I do most of my writing.”

“Oh,” Gilbert smiled. He sat down next to her, putting their books down in front of them. Then he scooted closer to her, his head starting to curve to an angle as he leaned in. “So you brought me here for more ‘inspiration?’”

“Precisely,” Anne said, bringing her paper up to her face before he could kiss her. She giggled to herself as she put it down and saw the slightly hurt, slightly amused look on Gilbert’s face. “First, I must finish the section of the story I was writing and then I can start to take notes.”

“Fine by me,” he smiled, reaching towards his own books.

They stayed there, the two of them sitting in silence while he worked on homework and she wrote the pivotal scene in her story. It was almost an hour when she finally decided she’d stopped at an appropriate spot for the meantime and she grabbed a blank sheet of paper. At the top she wrote “Types of Kisses” and the under it to the left she wrote “peck.”

“Gilbert, I’m ready now,” Anne said, putting it down and turning to look at him.

He put his own book down and mirrored her sitting, a smirk on his face that, as aggravating as it was, still made her stomach summersault. 

“And how shall I be kissing you today, Miss Shirley Cuthbert,” he asked her, fully teasing her and she couldn’t help but smile, too.

“Just a peck,” she answered, raising her head high and sitting up straighter to prepare herself. “I think I will be making casual kisses customary in my writing.”

He laughed, but then leaned in, puckering his lips and quickly kissing’s Anne’s. It lasted hardly a second, but Anne found that it was more than enough time to make her absolutely melt. It was nothing like their kiss had been yesterday, long and leaving them breathless, but it was still sweet. Still Gilbert’s.

“Thank you,” she said politely, and then turned back to her paper. He only laughed and shook his head at her before turning back to his only work. While he studied math, she wrote about how a peck was like a little electrical charge. Just a quick spark of something, enough to course through her veins, enough to make her feel like something had been ignited in her but also make her feel like she could die. A happy and romantic death.

“It’s getting late,” Gilbert told her, peeking outside the house to the greying sky. “Maybe we should finish this tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Anne said, gathering her things and trying not to seem upset about not being able to kiss him more that day. “I really appreciate your help with my writing, Gilbert.”

“What are friends for,” he said, a grin barely visible.

When he smiled, Anne noticed the small dimples that appeared on his face. That night she found herself writing about them and comparing them to craters on the moon.

And for the next few days, Anne found herself writing about other of Gilbert’s qualities, not just his kisses. Although, she very much enjoyed the process it took to be able to write about them.

She wrote about how it felt to have his warm lips brush against her cold cheek. And she also wrote about the way his lips spread into a small smile after he winked at her from across the classroom when no one was watching. Both made her feel like a sunflower reaching towards the light.

She wrote about how it felt to have his head duck and have his lips leave a lingering kiss on her jaw. And she also wrote about his own jaw, angle sharp enough to cut her hand on, and imagined what it would feel like to press her own lips on his jaw. Both made her feel like a forest on fire.

She wrote about how it felt to has have his mouth laughing on her ear after she asked him to kiss her there and he couldn’t take it seriously. And she also wrote about the way she noticed he would sometimes play with his earlobe, rubbing it in between his fingers, when he was thinking. Both made her feel like a rainbow after a storm.

She wrote about how it felt to have his eyelashes brush against her own in a butterfly kiss. And she also wrote about the way he looked at her, eyes wide and gentle and firm, more so than they were with anybody else. Both made her feel like the first snowflake to fall from the sky and land onto earth, special and delicate.

She wrote about how it felt to have his nose rub against her own, the action causing them both to blush and giggle. And she also wrote about how he always jumped at the opportunity to open the door for her or help her with her things. Both made her feel like leaves turning from a dark green to a crisp orange, still beautiful but in a different way.

She wrote about how it felt to have his hand come up behind her neck, bring her head closer to him, and have his lips leave a soft kiss on her forehead. And she also wrote about how he had been one of the first to make her feel safe, knowing that he wanted her to succeed and would never judge her for her quirks. Both made her feel like the waves crashing onto the shore, loud and present and meant to be.

She wrote about how it felt to have fingers under her palm, his thumb rubbing back and forth across her knuckles as he brought her hand up to his mouth to place a kiss on the back of it. And she also wrote about how she noticed he walked closer to her now, their fingers always brushing against each other. Both made her feel like the seeds of a dandelion flower being blown away into the wind, carrying a hundred wishes with them. 

Nothing in the world could have possibly compared however to the way Anne felt when she kissed him that one Tuesday afternoon, a week after she had decided she had enough information about kisses and had disappointingly ended her “project” with Gilbert. He still walked her home, but the both of them knew there would be no detour to escape the rest of the world and just kiss and write. Be with each other.

But that day, something in Anne’s brain settled while she looked over at Gilbert. They were the only two left in the classroom, both of them having stayed behind to ask Miss Stacy a question about the science lesson, and he was putting his coat on. He looked handsome, unbelievably and casually handsome, as his fingers went to button himself up. As they went to rake at his curls before he put on his hat. 

Anne remembered the first time she had ever seen him, when he had saved her from Billy. She remembered being nervous when it registered through her mind that he was the most handsome boy she’d ever seen in her life. How this total stranger who didn’t know who she was had stood up for her and saved her.

She remembered how much she’d missed him when he had been gone. How deep in her soul laid the wish that he would come home. How that wish especially made its presence known during that cursed spin the bottle game, when she wished he had been there for her to land on. And she remembered then what she had said and argued with her friends.

_If she wanted to kiss a boy, couldn’t she just kiss him?_

Looking then at Gilbert, there was nothing she wanted more.

Before she could stop herself, she walked over to him where he was putting his scarf around his neck. He had barely realized she was standing there when she grabbed the ends of his scarf in both hands, pulled him down, raised herself onto her toes, and kissed him.

Having her lips crash onto his, the softness and sweet flavor that she adored, she realized how much she had missed this. She felt him smile onto her lips and felt herself begin to smile too, letting go of him to see him.

“What kind of kiss was that for,” he asked her, his eyes hazy but his smile as clear as ever, a small laugh escaping.

Anne laughed a little too, a smirk on her face as she toyed with the ends of his scarf and gave him a playful shrug. Her eyes never leaving his.

“That was just for me.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first ever shirbert fic and i am literally *dying* posting this, i am so nervous pls tell me this doesn't suck


End file.
